


Rotation About an Arbitrary Axis

by shiphitsthefan



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, Spacedogs - Fandom
Genre: Bear!Nigel, Caretaking, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Hand Jobs, Hannibal Extended Universe, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Podfic Welcome, Porn with Feelings, Roommates, Special Guest Appearance by Mads' Tum, Spooning, Touch-Starved, Vulnerable Nigel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:26:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7444285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nigel is lying in the bathroom floor, curled around the toilet like a hungover frat boy, pressing his forehead to the cold base. His vision is blurred, and he’s thrown up twice since he stepped out of the shower. Nigel knew better than to step into it in the first place, as dizzy as he was; likewise, he knows better than to try and get up. While he didn’t listen to himself before, he’s obligated to do so now.</p><p><i>This is how I finally die,</i> Nigel thinks to himself. <i>Wrapped in a towel, acid burning in my throat, my brain trampled by a herd of...something heavy and probably wild and definitely smelly.</i></p><p>***</p><p>Nigel hasn't had a migraine this horrible in a long, long time. Luckily, his roommate is out of this world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rotation About an Arbitrary Axis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Llewcie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/gifts).



> I was going to write the next chapter of _[Tėvelis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7098148)_ , and then Spacedogs happened. So say we all.
> 
> This is a present for Llewcie, who's been in the deep end of the migraine pool with me this week. <3
> 
> Trigger warning for Nigel briefly using ableist language in reference to himself.

Nigel hasn’t had a debilitating migraine like this since he was a teenager. Not to say he hasn’t had his fair share of them over the years, but back then, back in Romania, Nigel had any number of people to hit up for painkillers of various shapes, sizes, and legality.

Here, in Los Angeles, he has yet to establish such a contact, and he’s unlikely to do so.

When he was a kid, the doctor his family bribed to treat him said that it was testosterone that was fucking him up, but Nigel never believed it. He’s never been exactly stable; as far as Nigel’s concerned, that first migraine was a portent of pain to come. Just like the rest of his life, it finally caught up with him.

If not hormones or prophetic, maybe this pounding in his head is still an after-effect of the bullet that grazed his skull back in Bucharest. It could be stress-related; his mandatory stay in the mental facility after his attempted suicide wasn’t precisely pleasant. At least it got him out of the more serious criminal charges, and then Darko got him out of the hospital, and then Nigel liquidated all of his holdings and got the fuck out of Romania.

Nigel hadn’t known where to go besides _away_. Strangely enough, all of his choices seem to have been made for him, as if Fate realized it had screwed him over his entire life and was making amends. He’d asked the ticket agent at the airport where the next flight out was headed, and it was Los Angeles. He’d picked up a newspaper at LAX, flipped it open to the classifieds, and found someone looking for a roommate.

Now he lives with a very quiet spaceman in a very neat apartment in a very interesting part of the city. Nigel knows he could probably go knocking on doors and find whatever he needs to self-medicate this goddamn migraine.

But he can’t. Nigel would never expose his roommate to the kind of life he used to live. Not for anything.

Adam’s such a nice guy. He’s _too_ nice, Nigel thinks, especially to him. Maybe it’s part of Adam’s disability--asparagus syndrome or whatever the fuck it was called--but Nigel’s more inclined to believe that it’s just Adam. He has a kind soul; he’d be one of the good guys no matter how his brain worked.

So when Adam had told him upfront that he had issues understanding people and didn’t always know what to say and was prone to meltdowns when stressed, Nigel had felt that he had no choice but to explain exactly what he’d run from.

Adam said, “Okay,” and handed him a key to the apartment.

“You’re shitting me,” Nigel muttered, key resting in his open palm, too shocked to close his hand.

“The bathroom’s down the hall and to the right.”

Nigel frowned. “It’s not literal.”

“I know,” said Adam. “But it’s important to know where the bathroom is.”

Which is precisely where Nigel is lying now, in the bathroom floor, curled around the toilet like a hungover frat boy, pressing his forehead to the cold base. His vision is blurred, and he’s thrown up twice since he stepped out of the shower. Nigel knew better than to step into it in the first place, as dizzy as he was; likewise, he knows better than to try and get up. While he didn’t listen to himself before, he’s obligated to do so now.

 _This is how I finally die,_ Nigel thinks to himself. _Wrapped in a towel, acid burning in my throat, my brain trampled by a herd of...something heavy and probably wild and definitely smelly._

He’s not sure how long he’s lain there with his arm over his eyes, doing his best not to breathe too hard or move, before Nigel hears the front door being unlocked. It’s either Adam, which means he’s been in the bathroom floor for more than an hour, or else it’s someone here to put him out of his misery.

The door opens quietly. There’s the whisper of rubber soles on the doormat, followed by the tiniest _clop_ of a shoe against the floor, and then another. A shuffle, a click, and a sigh.

Adam, then. Beautiful, strange, wonderful Adam.

Adam with his watching the same space documentary over and over for weeks at a time. Nigel has “The Lives of the Stars” memorized, Carl Sagan’s voice a constant buzzing lull in his psyche. He moved in four episodes deep into _Cosmos_. Adam’s promised to start it over again as soon as he gets to the end which, knowing Adam, will be six months from now.

But Nigel doesn’t care about that. He could care less about watching the history of the universe; what he wants is to watch the way the subject lights up Adam’s face.

Adam with his macaroni and cheese. Adam with his cosmobabble. Adam with his blank stares at jokes and his silent, “Oh,” once he gets them.

Nigel doesn’t fall in love, not really. He only falls, and he’s never fallen harder for anyone like he has for Adam.

By his calculation and his understanding of Adam’s schedule, he has about five minutes to drag himself to his bedroom before Adam finds him and sees Nigel as a pathetic mess.

He lifts his head, the room tilts, and Nigel decides it’s better to stay put. Being committed showed him that he’s been a pathetic mess for most of his life. At least now, Adam will know.

Nigel kicks the maudlin part of his gray matter. He hates being in pain. It makes him existentially grumpy.

Adam hums as he comes down the hallway. Nigel usually likes it, the nonsensical noise of the contented, but now it echoes around in his skull, grating against the self-recrimination and the swollen pulse that is characteristic of his migraines. He can’t help but wince; he tries to stifle the groan in his elbow, squinting his eyes shut even more tightly.

The humming stops. Nigel hears a palm land softly on the hallway wall. It runs the length of the wall until fingertips hit the molding around the door to the bathroom. And then he stands there; he doesn’t say a word. Nigel wonders if maybe he imagined the whole thing. It’s possible--he’s never wanted comfort so badly in his life, not even the times he’s nearly bled out.

“Nigel?” Adam finally says, and he sounds so nervous that it hurts more than Nigel’s migraine.

“‘M okay,” manages Nigel, and the sound of his own voice makes his head swim. “Sick.”

“Oh.” He hasn’t heard any further movement, which means that Adam is still standing along the wall and not looking in. “Is it contagious?”

“Migr--” Nigel hisses, having stupidly attempted to sit up on his own. “Isus _fuck_. Migraine.”

Nigel hears Adam’s bare feet grip the damp tile of the bathroom and tries not to think about how ridiculous he looks lying in the floor like a crime scene. The light switch flips, and the room is plunged into blessed darkness.

“You’re an angel,” says Nigel.

“I’m not,” Adam replies, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re naked.”

Nigel flails an arm out, looking for the edge of his bath towel. “Shit. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” says Adam, stepping into the room. “I just...thought you would want to know.”

“Thanks,” Nigel tells him, because what else can he say? To his roommate. That he is irrevocably obsessed with. Who just found him naked on their shared bathroom floor.

Nigel’s pretty sure he’s had this nightmare before.

“You, um.” The handle to the toilet jiggles. “Are you done?”

“I’m--”

“Sorry, yes,” Adam says, “it’s okay. But are you?”

Nigel wants to melt into the floor, and not only because it would mean he couldn’t feel his head splitting open anymore. “I won’t know until I move again.”

He feels Adam’s knees brush against the back of his thighs as Adam kneels down beside him. “Let’s start there, then, with the moving.” Adam takes his left hand to pull him up off the floor, and Nigel starts to open his eyes. “Don’t do that,” Adam says, and Nigel obeys, lets Adam pull him up to sitting, makes some noises that he will be truly embarrassed about later when he isn’t trying to keep his internal organs defined as such.

This isn’t precisely how Nigel wanted to curl up with Adam for the first time. He didn’t want to learn that Adam smelled like salt water and lavender, like a warm bath after a hard run, when he was completely overwhelmed by any scent, at all. Having his face buried in the crook of his neck, though, that’s nice. So is the tentative patting at his back.

“Don’t have to do that,” he mumbles into Adam’s sweater. _Please, don’t stop,_ he wants to say. _It’s been so long since someone touched me like they cared._

“I thought it might be comforting.”

 _It is,_ and Nigel chuckles, regretting it immediately as the skin resettles over the musculature of his face. “Rather you be comfortable. One of us should be.”

Adam nods, and lets his hand fall from Nigel’s back. “You want to brush your teeth?”

“I smell that good, huh?”

“No.” A pause and then, “I didn’t mean that in a blunt way. It was supposed to be funny. But I did think you might want to brush your teeth. They feel all fuzzy and odd after you’ve thrown up. And the stomach acid can eat the enamel off the back of your teeth.”

“Don’t think I can stand up long enough,” admits Nigel.

Adam stretches his arm over to the counter, trying not to jostle Nigel from his shoulder. He grabs the toothbrush that Nigel always leaves next to the sink instead of in the cup where it belonged. A few more seconds of fumbling, and Adam finds the tube of Colgate as well. Nigel hears him rummaging around under the counter--the cabinet door creaks, and he wishes he’d remembered to fix it before now--a quiet sound of victory when Adam finds whatever it is he was looking for.

“Here,” he says, and presses the brush and paste into Nigel’s hand. Adam leans back, and Nigel goes with him; somehow, Adam manages to turn on the bathtub faucet. The dripping of water in a plastic cup is unbearably loud. “You can spit in the toilet,” Adam tells him. “I’m going to put the water here on the floor.”

Nigel thinks he says okay, or something like it, but can’t be sure. Adam leaves, and Nigel forgets to put the paste on the brush at first, tries to brush his teeth dry. He gets it right, eventually, and Adam returns, eventually. Five minutes, half an hour, two days, the day before. Nigel’s brain is so scrambled that time isn’t calculable.

Adam holds the cup to his lips, and Nigel drinks, swallows instead of spitting. The flush of the toilet roars in his ears, and isn’t that just perfect.

His arm is around Adam’s shoulders, hands close enough to touch, so Nigel bridges the gap and does. Adam’s palm is smooth on the back of his hand, evidence of a life lived peacefully, one so unlike his own. Nigel buries his face into Adam’s neck again, not caring how much more difficult it will make the journey toward standing and the walk to his room. He feels another unblemished hand wind around his torso to grip at his hip, long fingers brushing against the roundness of his stomach. Nigel wonders what those fingers would feel like down his other side, across the long jagged scar, impossibly gentle over violence memorialized.

“You’re still naked,” Adam says.

“Don’t think I can hold the towel up, darling,” and the words slur out, he can’t control them, can’t control the way Adam stiffens when he hears them.

Adam relaxes just as quickly and clears his throat. “I don’t mind,” and Nigel’s not sure what Adam doesn’t care about--his nudity, or the endearment.

Nigel blacks out for a handful of years on the trip to the bedroom, coming back to as Adam’s helping him to lower himself to the bed. The mattress is almost painfully soft, and the sheets are crisp, and they smell of lavender.

“‘S your bed, Adam?”

“It’s nicer than yours,” he explains matter-of-factly. “This is viscoelastic polyurethane foam. Developed by the Ames Research Center. NASA.”

“‘Course it is.” The sheets and light blanket are a welcome weight on Nigel’s body, a new pressure from shoulders to toes to distract him from the one in his head. He hums his appreciation as the room grows darker; Nigel doesn’t remember Adam going to draw the black-out curtains.

“I’m going to go out for a few minutes,” says Adam, and Nigel’s so lost in the ache that he imagines the ghosting of a hand on his forehead, pushing his hair out of his face. “I’ll be right back.”

The hand leaves, and Adam leaves, and so does Nigel, drug down into sleep, but not quite to unconsciousness.

 

***

 

“Nigel?”

That same nervous voice from before stirs Nigel from whatever strange trance the pain had put him in. He blinks, hoping his vision will have straightened itself out, but Nigel still sees blurs. What he doesn’t see in the beam of light cast around the edge of the bedroom’s open door is Adam, so he makes to turn over, which is a terrible idea. He can’t swallow the moan, can barely swallow the rising bile.

Adam shushes him, puts a hand back on his shoulder to keep him from moving. “Let me come around to the other side.”

“Mmm.”

“I have medicine and tea.”

“Oh, wait,” says Nigel, reaching blindly behind him for Adam before remembering that they were separated by a blanket. “Just help me sit up, yeah?”

“Are you sure?” Adam asks, but he’s already moving a pillow, propping it against the headboard. He grips Nigel’s elbow, and Nigel knows he’s sitting up too fast, but he doesn’t care, because Adam has promised painkillers. “Here,” he says, once they have Nigel situated, and Nigel expects him to put the pills in his hand.

He certainly didn’t expect Adam to hold them up to his mouth, but Nigel is perfectly happy to comply with the silent request to open. The medicine hits his tongue, and Nigel already misses the feeling of Adam’s fingers on his lips. He swallows the pills dry.

“Adam?”

“Yes?”

“What did I just take?” Nigel cracks an eye open and looks sideways at Adam. He’s staring back, clutching a mug of steaming hot tea between his hands.

“I went down the hall to Lenny,” says Adam, as if that explains everything.

Nigel tries to remember who the fuck Lenny is. “The Vietnam vet in 2b?”

“Yes, him.”

When Adam doesn’t supply further information, Nigel prompts, “And?”

Adam averts his eyes. “And I asked him what medicine was best for a migraine. And then he gave me a bottle.”

“And?”

“Well,” Adam starts, “I told him I couldn’t take it from him, because it isn’t right to buy other people’s medications, and I didn’t know how you would feel about it because you have a fresh start, and he said it was okay, and that I could just pay him back by going with him to the library sometimes to carry his books home, and--”

“What did I _take,_ Adam?”

Adam wets his lips, and Nigel tries not to follow the movement of his tongue. “Vicodin.”

“Oh,” Nigel says, laughing breathily. “And here I was getting worried.”

“Lenny said to stay hydrated. Otherwise you’ll get constipated.”

“That’s--” He coughs; the pills feel like they’re stuck in his throat, and Nigel hopes that isn’t an omen. “That’s good to know.”

“Do you want your tea?” Adam doesn’t miss a beat, sweeping his law-breaking and digestive side-effects neatly under the rug. “It’s chamomile.”

“Didn’t know we even had tea.” Nigel accepts it gratefully, though he’s not sure he’ll be able to drink it, let alone keep it down.

“We don’t.”

“So…”

Adam unwraps a straw and sticks it in Nigel’s mug. It’s so endearingly cute that Nigel can’t bring himself to be insulted. “I got it from Anita in 3c.”

Nigel takes a small sip of the tea, making sure to use the straw.

“Wasn’t sure what to do for your migraine,” Adam continues. “I took a survey, but only Anita and Lenny came to the door. I don’t think you were supposed to take those pills with a hot drink.”

“I’ve taken worse with worse,” says Nigel. And he has. Never mind that he’d take literally anything Adam handed him, especially right now. Nigel trusts Adam in a way he’s never trusted anyone, not even Gabi. He was sucked into Adam’s gravitational pull or magnetic attraction or what the fuck ever it’s called.

Gabi _played_ music, manipulated the bow and bent the notes to her will; Adam _was_ music, and needed nothing.

“So you’ve said, Nigel.” Adam looks down at his lap, fiddling with his fingers, gathering his thoughts. He waits until Nigel has a mouthful of tea, because that’s the way the universe works. “You’re very fuzzy,” he says.

Nigel, to his credit, doesn’t choke. “I won’t shed much,” he says with a wink, “I promise.”

“You’re like a...like a bear.”

“This the first time you’ve seen me without a shirt?”

Adam doesn’t usually meet Nigel’s eyes, or at least, if he does, not for long. Now that’s he’s looking back at Nigel, though, his gaze is riveted to the curls of silvering hair on his chest. “It’s the first time I’ve seen you without clothes, at all.”

“I’ve got some sweats and an old tee in--”

“No!”

He looks over at Adam, who seems as surprised by his outburst as Nigel is.

“I...like it.”

“I could at least put on boxers,” suggests Nigel, though he doesn’t particularly want to. The sheets feel wonderful against his bare skin, certainly much nicer than the cheap ones on his own bed.

“No,” Adam says. “I like that, too.”

Nigel smiles around the straw. Adam isn’t blushing, but he wouldn’t expect him to. He’s not one to be embarrassed by his feelings; he only gets embarrassed afterward, when he’s misinterpreted. So Nigel says nothing, satisfied to sip his tea and give him his space.

Adam doesn’t seem to have more to add, though. He pulls _The Grand Design_ off of the bedside table and flips it open, his reading lit solely by the thin beam of light from the door. Nigel leans his head back, his hands warmed by the mug, his heart warmed by his company, and waits for the Vicodin to kick in.

 

***

 

Nigel opens his eyes slowly, swimming his way back to the surface from underneath the cotton-muffled relaxation of the drug. His mouth is dry, like he’s been breathing through it; he flexes his fingers, and distinctly remembers that he was holding a mug when last he was conscious.

“Did I wake you up?”

“You’re in my bed?” Nigel asks, then answers, “No, I’m in yours.”

Adam laughs. “Yes.”

“I had...tea?”

“I took it to the kitchen. It was cold, so I poured it out. The tea, I mean. The kitchen was cold, too, but...well. Yes.”

Nigel pats his hand across the blanket, searching for Adam. His fingers run into the thin cotton of lightweight pajama pants. “Did I sleep long?”

“You’ve been kind of in and out for the last half-hour,” Adam tells him.

“You’re in pajamas. I thought it might be later than that.”

“I’m in bed,” says Adam flatly. “You wear pajamas in bed.”

Nigel rotates one shoulder slowly, and then the other, making sure not to move his head. “Wake me up next time you change.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I want to watch, gorgeous,” he says, grinning.

Adam shifts on the bed; his thigh bumps into Nigel’s fingertips. “It’s not all that interesting. Just...clothes shifting places.”

Nigel shrugs gingerly.

“Are you feeling better?” Adam asks.

“My head still hurts, but I don’t care that it does.”

“That’s good.” He shifts again, and if Nigel were completely sober, he would swear that Adam was pressing his leg into his hand on purpose. “Do you need anything?”

“Oh, darling,” Nigel says, laughing and wincing from the laughing and laughing from the wincing. “Darling, but you ask such loaded questions.” He turns his head without thinking, and the migraine makes itself known again, spinning the room around him. Nigel gasps before he can stop himself, first from the pain, but then again, a shuddering breath as Adam’s palm brushes the side of his face.

Adam pulls his hand back, suddenly tentative. “I wasn’t thinking, I shouldn’t have touched your head.”

 _“Adam,”_ and Nigel hates the plaintive whine in his voice, how childish he sounds, because he’s recovered from grievous bodily injury. This is, comparatively, nothing. Nigel has healed alone, hurt alone. But fucking _Hristos_ is he tired of that.

“Do you want to lie down?”

Nigel bites back the frustrated sob. He doesn’t want to do anything besides grab Adam’s hand and push his face back into it. But Nigel isn’t like Adam, unashamed of his emotions. He’s not a good person like Adam, either; his slate may have been wiped, but it certainly isn’t clean.

“Got to take my crazy pills first,” Nigel says instead, bitter.

“Medicine cabinet, right?”

“Yeah.”

The door lets in the light from the hall as it lets Adam out, and Nigel clamps a hand over his eyes. He hates being like this. Physical pain exacerbates every mental injury, enlarges every personal fault into a crumbling bluff to throw himself from. Nigel tries to do what his psychiatrist suggested--and _there’s_ a phrase he’d never thought he’d say--and remind himself that it’s a feeling, that feelings pass. It’s difficult when his thoughts are clouded and muddied from not only the pain, but the painkillers, too.

Adam pads back into the room, a fist full of pills and a cup of water in the other hand. He pushes the door closed with his foot, nearly losing his balance, but he makes it over to sit next to Nigel without further incident. Nigel takes the water and lets Adam dump the medicine into his hand. He instantly misses the way Adam gave them to him earlier.

“You’re not crazy,” Adam says.

Nigel exhales harshly through his nose. “Then what the hell am I?”

Adam starts rubbing his fingers against each other.

“Sorry,” Nigel sighs.

“It’s okay. You’re allowed to be grumpy when you don’t feel well.” Adam moves his hands to his legs; he taps his fingers against his thighs like he isn’t sure what to do with them. “I could help you lie down now, if you wanted. And maybe…” He trails off, like he’s thought better of what he was about to say, and that’s unlike him.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe I could hold you?”

Nigel lays his head down on the pillow. He feels goosebumps prickling across his skin. “You don’t...you’d don’t have to do that, Adam.”

“I thought maybe someone came for you,” Adam says, a tremor to his voice. “Someone from Romania. From your past. I saw your foot sticking out in the hallway and I…”

If Nigel wasn’t nauseous before, he is now. “Isus, Adam, I--”

“I saw you lying in the floor, and I saw that you were sick, and I’ve never seen you sick before. And when I was patting your back…” Adam lies down behind him, not quite touching. “I know what it’s like to not be touched for a long time, Nigel. And it would make me feel better if you’d let me hold you so that _you_ feel better.”

Nigel thinks maybe he’ll nod, because he doesn’t trust his voice right now, then realizes that jarring his brain is a horrible plan. “That sounds good,” he manages.

Adam slips beneath the sheets and blanket. His legs mold to backs of Nigel’s. He squeezes an arm beneath Nigel’s side; it’s awkward, and a little uncomfortable, but it’s contact, and that’s all Nigel cares about. Adam wraps the arm around his ribs, splays his hand in the hair on his chest. His other arm comes up and over his hips, resting a hand on his stomach. It makes Nigel feel warm and safe. Loved.

“You _are_ a bear,” Adam murmurs against the back of his neck. He cards his fingers through the hair, squishes Nigel’s belly slightly.

Nigel feels slightly less safe. “You mean fat.”

“Soft,” Adam says, nuzzling his face into his back. Nigel can feel him smile. “Cuddly.”

“I used to kill people for calling me soft,” says Nigel. “Remember? Crazy pills?”

“You aren’t crazy,” repeats Adam. He squeezes Nigel more tightly, and a fingertip brushes against Nigel’s nipple. His breath hitches, but Adam doesn’t seem to notice. If he does, it doesn’t bother him. “Do you still want me to tell you what you are? Is this a hint? You have to tell me.”

“It’s not a hint,” Nigel says, and his head still hurts, and he’s getting a bit motion sick from Adam’s chest rising and falling against his back, but he doesn’t care anymore. “You can, though. If you want to.”

“I felt bad earlier,” Adam begins, voice low and soothing.

“Why?”

“You were sick, but I couldn’t stop staring at you. I try not to, because people think it’s creepy, so I never really looked at you before.” He presses his forehead to the back of Nigel’s neck. “You’re very attractive. I mean, I knew that before, because I’d seen your face, of course. But you were naked. And now I know that you’re attractive everywhere.”

Nigel chuckles, but it turns into a moan when the movement makes Adam’s fingers rub over his nipple again. His cock gives an interested twitch, but his head hurts too much to want to do anything about it.

“Don’t laugh,” says Adam, “you’ll hurt yourself.”

“That wasn’t pain, gorgeous.”

He feels Adam smile again. “I liked it when you called me that. And darling. It was nice.” Adam pinches Nigel’s nipple, rolls the nub between his finger and thumb.

“Fuck, Adam, if I thought I could get it up right now--”

“I’ve never seen an uncircumcised penis before. It was arousing.” He kisses Nigel behind the ear, rubs his hand in slow circles across his stomach. “This is good, too, lying here, making you feel good. I’ve wanted to for a while, but I was afraid of, you know. The mind-blindness.”

Nigel sighs in pleasure. The movement of Adam’s fingers on his chest and belly is a nice counterpoint to the throbbing in his skull. “What changed?”

“I thought you were dead.” He kisses him again, buries his nose in Nigel’s hair. “Being wrong didn’t matter. And then you said you wished I’d woken you up so you could have seen me undress. So I knew I wasn’t wrong.”

“Adam?”

“Yes?”

“Come ‘round here so I can kiss you proper.”

Adam doesn’t get off the bed, choosing instead to climb over Nigel very carefully. He lies down, nose to nose with Nigel, tangling their legs together. Nigel wishes he could stand the light so he could see those gray-blue eyes he’s come to love so much. Maybe now that there’s so little between them, Adam will be able to look into his own more often, but it’s okay if he still can’t. So long as Nigel can have this, every morning when he wakes up, every night before he goes to sleep.

“Hi,” Adam says before touching their lips together. It’s hardly a kiss, but it makes Nigel moan regardless.

“Hello, gorgeous,” and he kisses him again, not as properly as he would like. It’s a start, at least.

“I know you said you couldn’t get an erection,” Adam ekes out between kisses, “but you’re poking me.”

“I can’t reciproca--” Nigel gasps as Adam closes a hand around his cock, stroking him slowly. It doesn’t matter that there’s no lube--Adam’s palm is warm, perfect, even if he has no idea what to do with Nigel’s foreskin.

“It’s okay,” says Adam. “You don’t have to do anything. You’ll sleep better after an orgasm.”

“Then let m-- _fuck,_ let me kiss you again.”

Adam kisses him a little more forcefully this time, but all the blood’s rushed down to Nigel’s cock now, so he’s not paying much attention to the migraine. He still has no idea where his center of balance is, but that’s okay. Adam’s got him.

“The universe is flat,” Adam whispers against his lips, his hand working between them. “It is flat, and it is curved. It has three dimensions, four, seven, none. It’s infinite and it’s finite and it’s a dichotomy, nothing and everything alike. Like us. Everything and nothing in common, but we’re here, together, and no one can explain it.”

“I love you,” Nigel says breathlessly, “you know that, right?”

“I hoped.” Adam kisses him again, the hardest yet. “Mind-blindness, though. So I just...hoped.”

Nigel relaxes, exhales, and releases.

“I’m glad you brushed your teeth.”

“Me too, darling,” says Nigel, when the wind returns to his lungs. He yawns, and Adam pecks him on the nose before getting up to wash his hands. Nigel struggles to keep his eyes open, but the lids are so heavy, and he’s so very tired. They slide shut as Adam slides back in behind him.

Adam holds him, and holds him, and doesn’t let go.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in celebration of [#SpacedogsSummer](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/tagged/SpacedogsSummer)! Check out the tag, and then follow [Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/) for more cannibae fun and fannibal games.
> 
> You can find me on my [tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/). I also chirp occasionally witty things on [twitter](https://twitter.com/shiphitsthefan).
> 
> Kudos and comments validate my existence. <3


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